Neurotic


Summary: "My name's not Chris Perry," Chris said, as if it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. "It's Christopher." He paused, almost reluctantly. "Christopher Halliwell."

Disclaimer: Charmed and Chris don't belong to me, doo dah, doo dah, I'm not making any money from this, oh, dah doo dah day.


Chapter The Twenty-Fourth


"Is it just me, or is everything in black and white?"

Dan blinked around at the new landscape the magical whirlwind of light had dumped them into. He looked at Paige, who was just as confused as him, and it both reassured him and scared him.

"Uh, no, you're not going colour-blind," Paige reassured him, "unless we're sharing a hallucination."

"Yeah, that's reassuring," Dan said, brushing dust from his jeans distractedly. "But black and white-"

"It's a first for me too," Paige said dazedly, looking around the streets. It looked like something straight from a 30's mystery novel, and sounded like it too. That was a very convincing 30's car horn, Paige thought dazedly, and her eyes widened as she realised there was a car coming at her. She tried to move, but couldn't, as shock overwhelmed her, and was only saved by Dan bodily tackling her again.

They fell in a heap on the sidewalk, as the car driver hurled abuse out the window at them, and sped off around the corner.

"Ughh," Paige mumbled, dazed and bruised, but thankfully alive. "Thanks. Second time this week, isn't it?"

Dan looked down at her and shrugged. "Something like that."

"Now if you could just get up so I could breathe, everything would be hunky-dory," Paige quipped, her dark brown eyes twinkling in mirth as Dan scrambled off her as quickly as he could, and extended a hand down to help her to her feet. Paige brushed mud matter-of-factly from her black pants, and looked around the neighborhood. "I think we've just been sucked into the book," she admitted, as they stayed safely on the sidewalk.

"Sucked into the-" Dan's mouth worked wordlessly for a second. He looked like he'd been blindsided by a flying naked leprechaun. And stranger things have happened, Paige thought wryly. "Sucked into the book?" He managed incredulously.

Paige folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah. Crazier things have happened," she said, although she couldn't exactly come up with a precise example at that moment. "This is the first black-and-white escapade yet, though."

"Black and white," Dan repeated, as if completely stunned. Paige sympathised with him - she was closer than her sisters to the period in her life when she hadn't known magic existed, and although Dan had technically known about magic longer than her, she'd been exposed to a lot more of it than him.

A car door slammed.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Paige murmured. Dan turned in amazement to see two guys in long-breasted coats and holding tommy guns advancing on them. His mouth fell open, and he shut it instantly.

"You friends of Eddie?" One of the man asked.

"Let me take care of this," Paige murmured to Dan, and Dan watched in amazement as her entire demeanour changed. Before she had been analytical of the place and a little scared, but now she exuded confidence as she sashayed a little closer to them, and put one hand on her hips provocatively. "Yeah, maybe we are," she said demurely. "What's it to you?"

"Don't get wise with me, Legs," the gangster said. Paige looked down at her legs, and back at him. "You're after the falcon, ain't ya? Everybody is. Well, it's Johnny's, so don't go getting any ideas."

"I think you've got us confused with someone else," Dan said hesitantly. The gangster eyeballed him roughly.

"I don't think so," the gangster informed him. Dan shuffled forwards a little.

"Can't you orb us out of here?" Dan whispered quickly to her.

"No, I already tried when the car came at me," Paige said. "My powers don't work here."

"Powers?" The gangster said, looking confusedly at his friend. Dan and Paige took that moment of hesitation to run, and not too early either, as the two gangsters instantly opened fire on them.


"So what we're saying is that Phoebe has disappeared from your radar, and Dan and Paige have been sucked into the book." Piper stared at the book sat on the table. She sighed.

Chris walked back over to the table after putting up another glamour on the front door so the world didn't see the destruction. "Phoebe could have been taken underground, or just onto a different plane of existence, like you and Leo were. I'm guessing, though, that perhaps we've gotten close to the friend who is going to betray us, and they got scared. Or it's Wyatt interfering. Or maybe both. Just one sister gone is disruption enough, so two different agents working against us is very likely."

"Well, I think I can take point on Paige's disappearance," Pippa said quickly. "It didn't happen for a good few months in my timeline, but all we have to do is finish the book. Paul and I can work on it."

"But what if Paige is already dead?" Piper said, voicing her biggest fear.

Paul and Pippa exchanged a long look, and Chris looked confusedly at the exchange.

"Paige is fine," Pippa said eventually. "When I encountered the book, anyone who died after being sucked into it had their body expelled."

"Great," Piper said, pulling a face. "You see to that. Chris, we're going to find Phoebe, okay?"

"Agreed," Chris said.

"Only one problem," Pippa said, pulling a face. "The book needs to be deactivated before I can do anything to it." Her face was dark. "You need an avatar to deactivate it."

"An avatar?" Piper looked confused. "What's-"

"Future consequences," Pippa, Paul and Chris managed to chime at the same time.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter what one is," Pippa said quickly. "What matters is the fact that we need one. But I don't know how we're going to get one."

"Actually," Chris said heavily, looking at the table top thoughtfully. "I think I know exactly where to get one."

It would have been good news had he not looked so truly haunted at the idea.


"Oh come ON guys, I'm RIGHT HERE!" Phoebe jumped up and down and waved her hands in front of Piper's face, but to no affect. She had to be on the astral plane, right? 'cause she could see everyone and everything, but they couldn't see her.

So why couldn't they hear her?

When Piper had been on the astral plane, Phoebe had heard Piper's voice, but they were acting as if they couldn't hear her.

Maybe it's because I'm the one with the cognitive powers, Phoebe said, and hope dropped in her like a stone. She shook her head, refusing the think like that, and then those at the table all separated, going in different directions.

Phoebe decided to stick with her strengths, and trail after Piper.


Chris looked around the caverns of the Underground, and desperately hoped that Wyatt hadn't started to rearrange the furniture down here to suit his future plans better.

He didn't see why Wyatt would start now - but there was always the chance, and so it was with a lot more hesitance that he trod the heated paths of the underground caverns.

He tried to settle his breathing, but he couldn't help it. He was nervous. This hadn't been done in his timeline, and for good reason. It would cause a lot of people a lot of pain. It would devestate Phoebe.

But this is to help find her, he had to keep reasoning, this is to help. And he can help find who turns Wyatt.

It wasn't very calming, but it was the only thing he could do right now to make sure the Power of Three was complete in the future. They needed the Power of Three, even if they could not stop Wyatt from being turned.

"Ah, Mr. Perry. Back so soon."

The icy words crept down Chris' spine, and he nodded as he entered the bulbous cavern that he had entered two months previously, to find a demon to scan for evil and had found this demon instead, that had made him an offer so awful he couldn't bear to think about taking the demon up on it...

And now he knew he had to.

"Yes," Chris said, unwaveringly. "I brought the items you said you would require if you were to- perform the service you offered."

The demon smiled at him darkly, and shuffled under its large cloak. "I thought you'd change your mind," the demon said softly. He took the bag Chris offered him and peered inside, delighted. "Fabulous. Although, I would almost pull this for free, just for the delicious events that would inevitably follow."

Chris nodded, and tried not to appear too tense.

"This won't take long," the demon assured him. He started throwing some ingredients in a cauldron, and then shuffled over to a large stalagmite. Tapping it, the top fell off, and he pulled out a sparkling gem from inside it. He grinned toothily at it, showing off a lot of yellowed serrated teeth. "Hmmm."

Chris' recognised the gem from his mineralogical studies at magic school. A resurrection gem. Only worked for demons, and they were incredibly rare. The demon pulled out another bag from his cloak, and sprinkled some kind of dust over it. Chris recognised that, too. Powdered unicorn horn. Once evil harvested the horn from murdering a unicorn, direr evil followed.

The demon waved his arms over the concoction, and grinned again. He yelled out a lot of fluidic, musical syllables, and they increased in volume so loudly that Chris clamped his hands over his ears, but it kept rising and rising, and the cavern shook, and a crimson whirlwind appeared around the stone and the magical components. The demon shrieked out some more syllables, and Chris was vaguely aware of rhymes within those pounding incantations, although he could not make out the language.

The wind increased in intensity, and a crimson light doused the whole cavern in a blood red, with falling streaks of blackness. Chris managed to understand some of the howled syllables now, and cringed. Death, and rebirth.

Oh, he was going to be so grounded when they all realised what he'd done.

Silence hit then, and it was almost louder than the sound, and it hit Chris like a physical slap. He stumbled backwards, and his back connected painfully with the cavern. He could smell blood, and didn't know if it was the consequence of the ritual the demon had carried out, or if it was his own blood.

Chris realised he'd screwed his eyes shut sometime in the last few seconds, and he forced them open. In the middle of the cavern now stood a man with brown hair and questioning blue eyes.

"Here you go," the demon said, smiling and shimmering out of the way, leaving them alone.

"Hello," Chris said, somewhat awkwardly. "My name's Chris. I'm from the future."

The man stuttered. "From... the future? What- what's going on?"

"What's going on?" Chris folded his arms. "Unless you help me, Paige and Phoebe will die, and a force more evil than the Source will destroy the world."

"Phoebe-" the man started, a look of anguish sweeping onto his handsome face. "Phoebe's in danger?"

"If you come with me to the manor, I'll explain further," Chris said.

The man looked at him suspiciously. "How do I know this isn't a trap?"

Chris sighed. "I had you resurrected because I need your power as an avatar, Cole. Do you want to help save Phoebe or not?"

That clinched it. Cole nodded, swallowed tremulously, and stepped forwards. "For Phoebe? Anything."

Chris nodded grimly, took Cole's arm and orbed them away.